Q: Will it be the same format as last season or will you re-jig the conferences?

A: It will be the same two conferences, with teams playing the other sides in their section home and away and then teams from the other conference either home or away. The one change is we will reverse the cross-conference fixtures.

Interesting to note that the boss man suggests 16 is the number of teams which would work for the league best in terms of reducing the number of games played, especially during the AI/6N windows.

At a guess in a Pro 16: 4 sections of 4: Irish, Welsh, South African and Scottish/Italian. Play H&A v sides in your own section to keep derbies and play the other 12 sides split Home and Away - 18 game season. Playoffs could be winner of each section then next 4 best sides in terms of points. Euro spots could be the section winners + next best 3 sides in terms of points.

The 3rd 1872 Cup game between Glasgow and Edinburgh will now actually be played at Scotstoun. It is a designated home game for Glasgow, but the SRU had originally scheduled it at Murrayfield to tie in with their "Silver Saturday" concept - a day where a lot of amateur finals are played etc.